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on” in which the sexual drives “lean on” the original self- preservative instincts satisfied during caretaking: the child encounters confusing, mysterious sensations, minute silent signals that it cannot understand nor begin to integrate but nonetheless awaken and begin to shape its own sexual feelings and desires, stimulating a sensual/ sexual set of inborn responsiveness, in addition to the bodily zones postulated by Freud. What is first taken in as sexuality by the human infant, therefore, is something mysterious, overwhelming and unspoken, and perhaps remains so. Differing with Laplanche, who feels the sexual drive springs up only at puberty, Kulish maintains that there are inborn, endogenous and continuous sexual sources in infancy and early childhood. There is evidence that low levels of hormones play a role in childhood sexuality. The levels are high in the first months, then decrease. Kulish theorizes that a general excitability exists from infancy, but something else is needed to make it more of a determining factor in development (Kestenberg 1976, Hadley,1992). Neuroscientists speak of several human motivational systems, such as lust or seeking, that work in tandem and may be involved in early experiences of infantile sexuality (Panksepp and Biven, 2012). In sum, Kulish’ view is that ( sexual) drive is shaped, but not constructed, by the other . IV. Fd. Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau: Integration of Freud’s First and Second Drive Theory In her work reaching over more than two decades, Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau (2001, 2018) has provided and explored a revision of Freud’s drive theory and its clinical applications. Not only does she point out the logical breaks within metapsychology, she also elaborates on how to remedy its inconsistencies. Schmidt-Hellerau shows how Freud’s first drive theory can be transitioned and integrated into his second drive theory. Doing so she puts a spotlight on the neglected concept of Freud’s original self-preservative drives, which (given that by definition the objects of a drive are variable) she proposes to conceptualize as self- and object- preservative. She leaves Freud’s second antagonism of death and life drives in place and states that it is the structuring intervention of the nursing and loving object that introduces self- preservation and sexuality as the preceding drive activities within the more far-reaching goals of death and life. Further she suggests as the drive’s sources for the death- and preservative drives the biogenic zones (inner organs) complementing the erotogenic zones of the life- and sexual drive (the outer organs on body’s surface). Finally, she introduces the energy term ‘lethe’ for the death- and preservative drives - equivalent to libido for the sexual and life drives (Freud never came up with an energy term for his former self-preservative drive nor for his later death drive or its representative, aggression). Having thus reorganized Freud’s drive theory, Schmidt-Hellerau reinstates Freud’s earlier idea of aggression as a capacity of both primal drives to overcome any obstacle to satisfaction. Aggression is not a primary drive seeking satisfaction for its own sake; it is the intensification, the energy enhancement of the preservative or the sexual drives, when their goals, survival or love, consciously or unconsciously are or seem to be threatened. Aggression asserts the subject’s sexual or
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